Drawing on extensive, sustained research carried out at the BFI National Archive, artist Holly Antrum presents a wide-ranging, unpredictable mix of film and videos, as if selected by the fictional researcher ‘Markéta’. Part-alternative voice, part-counterpoint for Antrum, ‘Markéta’ is imagined as a Czech student looking for elements of her country’s history in the Archive while pursuing an interest in the papers of film writer, director and academic Peter Wollen, which themselves map film history in complex, matrix-like shapes. This edition of the on-going Mixtape series takes the form of a lively, visual notebook, making unusual, texture-sensitive connections between the BFI National Archive and different personal and social histories.
Markéta Hašková (b. 1976, Brno, Czech Republic) is a fictional researcher comprised of multiple voices. She works as a translator, and she has travelled widely since living in London since 2002. Prior to the 1989 velvet revolution she planned to work in the family trade as a dressmaker. Hašková later studied film theory in the Faculty of Film and Television at the Academy of Performing Arts, Bratislava, graduating in 1999. From there she participated in the co-founding group behind 4 Elements film festival in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia. Marketa’s self-directed research centred on the BFI National Archive, and fragmentary presence among DIY films, point to the intersection of subjectivity and material when looking into the anglophone film archive, and how this context frames and inflects that experience. From the BFI National Archive she is using the collection items of Peter Wollen’s notebooks as the primary source for a proposed synthetic, subjective and schematic index inspired by his interests, through which to traverse multiple histories. A background focus guides her approach, combining reflections on memories and experiences of adolescence during the fall of communism and 1990s transition era, understanding leftist feminist positionalities in different contexts, as well as her own – and editing audio visual material from the perspective of phonics and dramaturgy. Weaving-in the perspectives of a contested ‘post socialist’ and more recently ‘migrant’ identity within UK, she has begun to narrate a series of short personal essays. She has also kept a notebook charting schemas of social, cultural and film histories, and concepts of self – including film viewing notes, one part being published by Camera Austria in 2022 within the exhibition presented in Graz, Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen: Intersections in Theory, Film and Art. She appears as a voice under-construction through online interviews with Czech and Slovak women and staged readings in a new film by artist and filmmaker Holly Antrum. Markéta is a matrilineal counterpart and the daughter of Holly Antrum’s mother by a different turn of history in 1948, and they are both British and Czech citizens. A book named after her will follow with Joan Publishing (UK) – release date to be announced.
Peter Wollen was born in London on 29 June 1938 and studied English at Christchurch College, Oxford. Both political journalist and film theorist, Wollen’s Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, first published in 1969, helped to transform the discipline of film studies by incorporating the methodologies of structuralism and semiotics.
Wollen’s first film credit was as co-writer of Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (Professione: Reporter, Italy, 1975) and he made his debut as a director with Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), the first of six films co-written and co-directed with his wife, Laura Mulvey. The low-budget Penthesilea portrayed women’s language and mythology as silenced by patriarchal structures. Acknowledging the influence of Godard’s Le Gai Savoir (France, 1968), Wollen intended the film to fuse avant-garde and radically political elements. The resultant work is innovative in the context of British cinema history, although unsurprisingly its relentlessly didactic approach did not make for mass appeal.
For Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), their most remarkable collaborative work, Wollen and Mulvey obtained a BFI Production Board grant, which enabled them to work with greater technical resources. Rewriting the Oedipal myth from a female standpoint, they use formal devices, such as their impressively choreographed circular pans, to create an expressionist effect which complicates and enhances the film’s narrative content.
AMY! (1980), commemorating Amy Johnson’s solo flight from Britain to Australia, syntheses themes previously covered by Wollen and Mulvey, but it is unwieldy and deliberately ahistorical. More watchable is Crystal Gazing (1982) in which formal experimentation is muted and narrative concerns emphasised. The film was criticised in some quarters for the absence of an explicitly feminist perspective, but it enjoyed generally favourable reviews. Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982), a short film tied to an international art exhibition curated by Wollen, and The Bad Sister (1982), a cumbersome drama based on a novel by Emma Tennant, were the final projects on which Wollen and Mulvey collaborated.
Wollen’s only solo feature, Friendship’s Death (1987), was the bizarre and absorbing story of the relationship between a British war correspondent and a female extraterrestrial robot on a peace mission to Earth, who, missing her intended destination of MIT, lands inadvertently in Amman, Jordan during the events of ‘Black September’ 1970. The film’s intelligent wit, coupled with outstanding performances from Tilda Swinton and Bill Paterson, makes this Wollen’s most compelling film.
Wollen taught film at a number of universities and was chair of the Department of Film, Television and New Media at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Eleanor Burke, Directors in British and Irish Cinema, from BFI Screenonline
Holly Antrum (she/her, b. London, 1983), is an artist, filmmaker and researcher. She works with lens-based media including 16mm film, as well as sound, print and writing, and her works approach public and closed live settings. Her work has been shown widely in the UK and internationally, in galleries, DIY spaces, cinemas, online and in print. Since 2018 she has been developing Markéta’s Notes. The project is also part of her PhD research with the BFI in partnership with Kingston School of Art, holding a scholarship funded by techne AHRC. Her films are distributed by LUX Artists’ Moving Image. She is based in London and South West England.
This Mixtape programme presents Markéta’s (screen) Notes as part of this serial artwork and later-stage research project curated through the lens of Markéta and her character development.
Accompanying this screening note: Markéta’s copy of Peter Wollen’s personal viewing notes of the full film, Oedipus Rex (1967) directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The pamphlet is 1 of 6 limited edition inserts from Markéta’s Notes (2022) published by Camera Austria: litho-printed in Salzburg on yellow recycled paper stock and quoting the original notebook in the BFI National Archive. The full artist publication (£11) is available from the BFI shop, edition of 400. https://shop.bfi.org.uk/marketa-s-notes-loose-leaf-file.html
Curated by Holly Antrum for BFI Experimenta Mixtape, 24 April 2023
Archive selections from BFI National Film Archive, Berkhamsted
With special thanks to: William Fowler, BFI
And: Kathleen Dickson, Viewings Access Officer; Steve Tollervey, Research Viewings Technician at BFI Research Viewing Services, Stephen Street
With further thanks to Markéta interviewees: Daniela Cölle, Tereza Stehlikova and Marta Daeuble.
Lesley Dick and Laura Mulvey
Jack Southern
BFI National Film Archive & Special Collections
Czech Embassy, London
Kingston University Graduate Research School
Abbe Fletcher and Volker Eichelmann (KSA) and Mark Reid (BFI)
Research on location in Brno and Bratislava supported by research funding from Techne, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Kingston School of Art.
Markéta’s Notes are intermediaries produced through archival encounters. They are intended to create new meeting points and cross borders in and outside the archive.
This mixtape is dedicated, in ongoing research to Peter Wollen (1938-2019) and also to my mother and herself in possible history, Daphne Dušek b.1948 (BFI ID 390024, 74654)
1. Markéta’s (screen) Notes I
Photograph and script by: Holly Antrum with Markéta Hašková
Featuring: Official forms signing (audio) with Czech Embassy bureau ticket, Czech Embassy London
Archive item: Peter Wollen notes on Věra Chytilová, Special Collections, National Film Archive
2. A New Shade of Red (information film)
Producer: George Grafton Green
Produced by: Rank Organisation Special Features Division, UK 1968 (on 35mm)
3. Markéta’s (screen) Notes II
Re-filmed media, film viewing notes, ‘Markéta’s Notes’ (publication)
Featuring:
Friendship’s Death Directed by: Peter Wollen
Produced by: British Film Institute, UK 1987
Oedipus Rex Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Produced by: Euro International Films, Italy 1967
A Taste of Honey Directed by: Tony Richards
Produced by: Bryanston Films, UK 1961
Undated viewing notes for Oedipus Rex (hand-copied from notepad of Peter Wollen)
Bookmark: Vaclav Havel - A Czech Drama Directed by: Pawel (Paul) Pawlikowski
Produced by: BBC, UK 1989
Film list of film viewing notes made by Peter Wollen held in BFI National Film Archive in Markéta’s Notes by Holly Antrum (2022). Published by Camera Austria, Graz
Filming on location in Bratislava, June 2022
4. Friendship’s Death (extract)
Directed by: Peter Wollen
Produced by: British Film Institute, Modelmark, Channel 4, UK 1987
5. Markéta’s (screen) Notes III
Featuring:
Part 1: Daphne (Markéta) Antrum (Dušek) with Holly Antrum (2020)
Part 2: with screen recorded extracts from
Co-operative Wholesale Clothing Factory in Manchester
Directed by: Mitchell and Kenyon
From the collection of: BFI National Film Archive c.1900
Factory Life at Bataville, East Tilbury (1943)
Corporate film, Director unknown
From the collection of: East Anglian Film Archive The voice of: Marta Daueble (Nejedlá), online meeting 2021
Photographs: Brno Trade Fair Centre, Brno Exhibition Centre, Czech Republic, June 2022
6. Trade Tattoo – The Rhythm of work-a-day Britain (animated short on 35mm)
Directed by: Len Lye
Produced by: GPO Film Unit, UK 1937
7. Markéta’s (screen) Notes IV
Photograph and notebook scan, silent
Quotation, Alexander Dubček, speech to the nation, 1968, translated from Czech to English within Bookmark: Vaclav Havel - A Czech Drama
Directed by: Pawel (Paul) Pawlikowski
Produced by: BBC, UK 1989
Photograph and notes at BFI: Markéta Hašková (2019)
8. Bookmark: Vaclav Havel – A Czech Drama
(extract)
Directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski
Produced by: BBC
UK 1989
9. Punks in Prague (extract)
Directed by: Patricia Powell
Produced by: Thames Television, UK 1991
10. AMY! (extract)
Directed by: Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen
Produced by: BFI, Modelmark, UK 1980
11. Markéta’s (screen) Notes V
Featuring
Notable Days by Pavel Büchler (1990)
Published by Book Works, London
The voice of Daniela Cölle (Chlapiková), online meeting 2021
12. Some Interviews on Personal Matters
(extract on 35mm)
Directed by: Lana Gogoberidze
Produced by: Sovexportfilm, Georgia 1978
13. Markéta’s (screen) Notes VI
Featuring
Performer: Rose O’Gallivan
Roll title: Computer Dances, Holly Antrum 2013
Costume, Camera and Direction by Holly Antrum
Location courtesy of Jerwood Space, London
Shot on FUJIFILM Eterna 500T (discontinued 16mm stock) Super-16mm on HD, silent rushes
14. Riddles of the Sphinx (extract)
Directed by: Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen
Produced by: BFI, UK 1977
15. Markéta’s (screen) Notes VII
Featuring
Part 1: Friendship’s Death
Directed by: Peter Wollen.
Produced by British Film Institute, UK 1987
Part 2: Filmed on location in Carmarthenshire, Wales, 2021
Camera: Jack Southern
Drivers and Researchers: Holly Antrum, Markéta Hašková
Organ practice in Birmingham Cathedral, 2014
Organist: Jonathan Stamp
Recorded by: Holly Antrum
16. Images of Atlantis, The photography of Milton Rogovin (extract)
Directed by: Peter Wollen
Executive Producer: Tariq Ali
Produced by: Bandung Productions, UK 1992
17. The Art of Komar and Melamid (extract)
Directed by: Peter Wollen
Executive Producer: Tariq Ali
Produced by: Bandung Productions, UK 1992
Marketa’s (screen) Notes I – VII (2013, 2019-23)
Sound Mastering by: Jake Holt
Researched, Scripted and Directed, Camera, Sound Recording and Editing by: Holly Antrum with Markéta Hašková
Markéta’s (screen) Notes © Holly Antrum 2023
Total runtime c.110 min
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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